Brings online document company into Zillow Group family

Zillow Group (Z) is set to acquire DotLoop, a Cincinnati-based company that boasts it can simplify real estate transactions by enabling brokerages, real estate agents, and their clients to share, edit, sign and store documents digitally.

Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“This acquisition is an extension of Zillow Group’s commitment to empowering buyers, sellers and real estate professionals with tools and information to make their lives easier,” Zillow said in a release.

Zillow Group CEO Spencer Rascoff said that Zillow intends to invest in DotLoop’s platform and make more widely available, adding that homebuyers, sellers and real estate professionals all want to see real estate transactions move online.

“We’re incredibly excited by DotLoop’s innovation and leadership in making digital transactions a reality,” Rascoff said. “Now we will be able to make their technology more readily available to Zillow Group’s 10,000 broker partners and the agents they represent, as well as our approximately 100,000 real estate agent advertisers, resulting in a smoother and more efficient transaction process for everyone.”

DotLoop was founded in 2009 and is led by Austin Allison, who will continue with the company as founder and general manager and will report to Errol Samuelson, Zillow Group’s chief industry development officer.

“As we’ve long said, the future of real estate is people-work, not paperwork,” Allison said.

“That’s why we are committed to removing the friction involved in paper-based real estate transactions,” Allison continued. “Becoming part of Zillow Group will provide us with new resources to help us grow and expand our business, while we add value to our current customers by offering increased support and faster product development.”

According to a release from Zillow, DotLoop brings the real estate transaction online, from the creation of a listing agreement to the submission of offers to the actual closing, enabling the process to move much more quickly and easily.

The Zillow release also states that real estate agents create more than 300,000 “loops,” which are an agent’s online workspace, and nearly half a million people sign real estate documents in DotLoop each month.

DotLoop has 124 employees across its Cincinnati headquarters and office in San Francisco.

Shortly after the deal was announced, Rascoff tweeted his excitement about the deal, saying that he believes DotLoop will bring as much tech innovation to the actual real estate transaction as Zillow has brought to real estate search.

Rascoff also called DotLoop one of the “most innovative real estate tech companies.”

The transaction is subject to the satisfaction of customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the third quarter of 2015.

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Ben Lane is the Senior Financial Reporter for HousingWire. In this role, he helps set a leading pace for news coverage spanning the issues driving the U.S. housing economy. Previously, he worked for TownSquareBuzz, a hyper-local news service. He is a graduate of University of North Texas.

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